Blackburn, Burnley and Bury-based accountancy firm PM&M has formed six UK property companies for a group of Hong Kong investors after an introduction through BNI.
The introduction came to PM&M partner Jackie Fisher, who is a member of BNI Infinity, which meets weekly at Wilpshire Golf Club, Blackburn, from Sam Yu of KS Yu & Co Certified Public Accountants (Practising), who is a member of BNI Apex, which meets weekly in Hong Kong.
The six companies set up so far will specialise in the acquisition and management of buy-to-let residential properties throughout the UK.
PM&M partner Jackie Fisher said: “Sam Yu was seeking to help some of his Hong King clients to invest in the UK property market and so was looking for an accountant to help him set up the UK companies required to ensure compliance with UK regulations and tax.
“BNI has a fantastic system called BNI Connect, which provides links between the 240,000 BNI members worldwide. The benefit over other business networks is the assurance that whoever you’re dealing with has also signed up to the BNI Code of Ethics and understands the central ethos of working with people you know, like and trust.”
Established over 30 years, BNI has around 240,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide. It works by organising weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses. Groups, known as chapters, use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another, to a specific brief that members outline at every meeting.
East Lancashire has five chapters and was recently declared the top BNI region out of 72 in the UK.
Sam Yu of KS Yu & Co Certified Public Accountants (Practising) said: “BNI is the power system which lets you find all kinds of professionals very easily, all over the world.
“Most important of all is that you know you can rely on overseas BNI members, even if you have not met them before.
“In the first instance, Jackie helped me set up my own new company in the UK. In BNI, we call this a tier one referral –where you try out somebody’s services for yourself so that you can feel confident in recommending them to your clients.
“Having experienced her excellent service first hand, I have since introduced her to five of my clients and so she has set up six UK companies for us so far. I will certainly be recommending her services to further investors in the future.”
